The EU said it has opened legal challenges against China and the United States at the World Trade Organization on Friday as punishing trade tariffs announced by Washington raised the prospects of a global trade war.

The European Union struck back at the US a day after President Donald Trump’s administration angered its major allies by slapping duties of 25 percent and 10 percent on imports of aluminium and steel.

European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmstrom adresses a press conference on the US restrictions on steel and aluminium affecting the EU, at the European Commission in Brussels on June 1, 2018. Photo: AFP/Emmanuel Dunand.

But the European Commission, which handles trade policy for the EU’s 28 member states, also targeted China, sending a message to Washington that it was not being singled out.

“If players in the world don’t stick to the rule book the system might collapse,” EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom told a news briefing in Brussels.

“That is why we are challenging the US and China at the WTO and it demonstrates that we are not choosing any side,” she said.

The Geneva-based WTO confirmed to AFP they had received the EU’s complaint against the US.

The case against China involves Beijing’s intellectual property practices, which bar market access to foreign companies without the granting of sensitive technology to Chinese entities.

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